Authorities: Michigan shootings suspect arrested in Wixom

EDITOR'S NOTE: Police are asking anyone with information on the shootings to call 800-773-2587 or 248-624-6114.

WIXOM — A 43-year-old man suspect has been arrested in connection with dozens of shootings across four Michigan counties that resulted in at least one injury, authorities announced Tuesday.

A task force investigating the shootings said that the suspect was taken into custody Monday night in Wixom, the Detroit suburb where the shootings began last month.

"The arrest was the result of information derived during the investigation over the past few days," the task force said in a statement.

The man is known to have driven a vehicle matching the description provided by one shooting victim, the task force said, and potential evidence also was seized at the suspect's home. Additional information about the man wasn't immediately released, pending review by prosecutors.

A tip — one of close to 3,000 that have come in — led authorities to the man's home, Ingham County Sheriff Gene Wriggelsworth said.

A man who answered the door Tuesday at the home where police discovered the shooting suspect told an Associated Press reporter he had no comment and to leave the property.

The shootings began Oct. 16 and stretched from Oakland County west to Ingham County. The targets in the 24 reported incidents were mostly cars traveling on roads near Interstate 96. Only a handful of shootings actually occurred on the interstate.

Before Tuesday's development, clues appeared to be few: slugs and bullet fragments embedded in cars, metal casings on roadways, a simple black-and-white sketch of the shooter — a man believed to be in his late 20s or early 30s — and vague descriptions of the dark car he drove.

The crime scene where the shootings took place is 100 miles long and slices through suburbia, shopping malls and farm pastures. Shootings have occurred during the day, at night, on weekdays and on weekends. Police say the shooter drives along roadways and fires at vehicles traveling in the opposite direction.

So far, only one person has been wounded

Initial reports of shootings stirred panic. Wixom schools restricted recess and other activities that would take students outdoors. Drivers avoided main thoroughfares where they might be exposed and took to driving along side streets.

But police have been working hard to maintain calm. In Wixom — where 10 of the shootings have been reported — police planned special Halloween patrols to protect trick-or-treaters. From Oakland County, northwest of Detroit, to Shiawassee County, northeast of Lansing, authorities stopped cars resembling the shooter's vehicle.